


and Oklahoma City looks mighty pretty

by evieoh



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Banter, Bickering, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Past Relationship(s), Snark, Stuck in a Car With Your Ex, Summer Camp, There is a lot of unresolved stuff here, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Feelings, Unresolved Sexual Tension, cross country road trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-08 04:38:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14097384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evieoh/pseuds/evieoh
Summary: “So anyway, Fitz spoke to Ward, and he’s back east for a family thing, and he said he’d do it.”And that’s how, two days later, Skye finds herself in a car filled with all her worldly possessions while waiting for the guy who broke her heart when she was 19.(Or: Skye and Ward as exes with a lot of unresolved feelings who have to spend a week long cross country roadtrip together)





	and Oklahoma City looks mighty pretty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stargazerdaisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stargazerdaisy/gifts).



> Hi all, my previous account was hacked and all my fics deleted, so I am reuploading them all now. This fic was originally posted in August 2017, as a birthday fic for my amazing stargazerdaisy. I endeavored to include all of her favorite fluffy tropes and cliches as well as somehow making both a road trip au and our summer camp au fit together. So this ended up being about 10,000 words longer than originally planned. Hopefully it all works lol.
> 
> (THHHHHHAAAAANK YOU to Megan and Vince for saving my sanity and being the reasons this ever actually got finished at all)
> 
> (for those of you that want any of the background on this, here are the few posts from our poor abandoned summer camp au: [X](http://evieoh.tumblr.com/post/146378176999/skyeward-summer-camp-counselors-au)  
> [X](http://evieoh.tumblr.com/post/146378264624/camp-counselor-au-name-the-cabins-and-tell-us)  
> [X](https://stargazerdaisy.tumblr.com/post/146856057183/camp-counselor-au-skye-and-ward-being-paired-up)  
> )
> 
> there is also an edit for this one on [my tumblr](http://evieoh.tumblr.com/post/164217092644/skyeward-fic)  
> anda playlist  
> too :)
> 
> (Title from "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66")

 

“Are you kidding me?” Skye groans in frustration. “We’ve had this trip planned for months now, and you’re bailing on me two days before?”

“I know! I’m so sorry, but this conference is  _huge_ , Skye. The connections I could make there could fund my next five years of research and-”

Skye doesn’t mean to, but she starts to tune Jemma out. The combination of science babble and Skye’s own rising panic at the sudden wrench in their plans has reduced her best friend’s voice to white noise. The rational part of her brain knows that she should be excited for her friend - Jemma being invited to present her paper at this conference is clearly a big deal. But the rational part of her brain is currently being overtaken by her inner 5 year old who is having a minor meltdown at the thought of having to do this trip alone.

All the things they had planned, route 66 and the Grand Canyon and all the quirky little motels along the way. The two of them had pored over maps and guidebooks and made list after list of the things they had always wanted to see. This trip is the thing that has pulled Skye through the last few months and she feels petulant urge to cry at the thought of not doing it. She starts back at work in LA in 8 days, there is definitely no way for her to do the trip as they planned it in that time frame on her own.

She’s so caught up in her own freakout that it takes her a minute to realize Jemma is still talking.

“So Fitz and I were talking, and we didn’t want you to have to drive all that way on your own, and then we thought that maybe Fitz could fly over and join you, but he’s on a deadline on this project at work, Kara has a work thing in London and Trip has to look after AJ, and Mack has Hope this week, plus Elena is due any day now, and Bobbi is still in South America, and I haven’t heard from Hunter in a few months; do you know what he’s up to at the moment? I hope he’s not gotten himself into a mess and landed in some jail in Thailand again, that was so much trouble to clear up the last time.”

Jemma finally pauses to take a breath, she is definitely babbling now, that rushed tone she always uses when she is about to say something she knows Skye is going to hate. It’s like the verbal equivalent of ripping off the bandaid.

Skye clenches the phone in her hand in apprehension as she waits for whatever is about to come out of her best friend’s mouth next.

“So anyway, Fitz spoke to Ward, and he’s back east for a family thing, and he said he’d do it.”

The words are spoken so quickly that they blur together. It takes a second for them to sink in and form a coherent sentence in Skye’s brain. The second they do however, she can feel her entire stomach drop.

Jemma is clearly anticipating her friend’s reaction, if her hurried assurances that Ward is totally happy to do it, and everything will be fine,  _and summer camp was years ago Skye, you should really probably let that go by now, you’re both grown ups, you can be mature._

Through it all Skye is silent, horror taking hold as Jemma’s words continue to wash over her.

“Wait a second, are you saying you guys already spoke to him about this? Before talking to me?” She asks incredulously.

“Well,” Jemma replies, primly practical. “If I’d mentioned it you to first, you would have just said no.”

Skye stares at the phone in her hand in silent shock as Jemma continues to speak, laying out the plans that she and Fitz have apparently figured out entirely without any input from her. She wants to complain but it kind of feels somehow like the moment for that has already passed even though she’s not entirely sure when. Somehow it feels almost easier to just let herself be swept along than to resist.

She never told Jemma the full story, too embarrassed at first and then too hurt later to want to share all the painful details with anyone, even her best friend. She’s kind of wishing she had told her now though. If she had, she’s pretty sure Jemma never would have suggested Skye spend a week stuck in a car with Ward. But she hadn’t, and some how it feels awkward to bring up something from so long ago now. Something that seems so small in the grand scheme of things, no matter how earth shattering it felt at the time.

And that’s how, two days later, Skye finds herself in a car filled with all her worldly possessions while waiting for the guy who broke her heart when she was 19.

 

 

* * * * *

Skye met Grant Ward the first summer she worked as a counsellor at Camp Tall Pine. (It’s where she met all of her friends actually, and she sometimes wonders what it says about her that her friend group has barely expanded in five years.)

She was trying to save money for college and she’d seen an ad on the noticeboard for counsellors. She figured hanging out with a bunch of kids in the woods for the summer definitely didn’t sound like the worst way to pay her way through the next semester.

She had never expected that she would get so much joy out of it. She’d always looked after the younger kids at St. Agnes, but she’d never thought those skills would come in handy one day. Or that she’d enjoy the hiking and color wars and sing-a-longs so much. It was all the cheesy stuff she would have rolled her eyes at in the past, but working at the camp had led to some of the best times in her life so far. She found the kind of friends she had longing for whole life. Something about being stuck in the middle of nowhere in Maine together bonded them together strongly enough that the friendships survived through the long distance of the years that followed. The camp director, Coulson, took enough of a personal interest in all of the kids who worked there that, even all these years later, he’s still the one who Skye turns to when she needs fatherly advice or a glowing letter of recommendation. Skye and Jemma had been in charge of a cabin full of 11 and 12 year old girls. There was definitely a war-time bond that formed between the two women after spending two months living in such close quarters with a dozen pre-adolescent girls. They were stuck in the hellaciousness of reliving the early angst of puberty vicariously through those girls. Then there had been Bobbi and Kara had been in the cabin next door. Hunter, the camp cook and Bobbi’s on-again off-again boyfriend; and Melinda May, the athletic director/terrifying drill sergeant. At least until you pushed past her rough exterior and found the teddy bear underneath it. (Very few people were brave enough to attempt that.) Trip and Fitz (Jemma’s best friend/future husband) had been over on the boy’s side of the camp.

Along with Grant Ward.

Ward was a stick in the mud, pain in the ass who she was pretty sure had a grudge against her for some unknown slight from the first couple of weeks of camp. Over time however, the two of them had warmed to each other and gradually bonded as they began to shyly reveal pieces of their pasts with each other, offering up each confession in cupped hands like a part of themselves. He became her best friend, the first person she had ever met outside of the orphanage who knew what it was like to feel like she did. Then he became something more than that. Her crush was inevitable, but it somehow still snuck up on her.

It was kind of the perfect rite of passage cliche; falling in love with the hot brooding guy at summer camp, thinking she could be the one to break through his walls. But to be honest, she had never really expected to break through them at all. She thought they would get through the summer with her infatuation clumsily hidden and he’d be oblivious despite the fact that every single other soul in the camp knew about it. She thought they’d go their separate ways, maybe promise to keep in touch, maybe even mean it. Maybe they’d be Facebook friends and she’d spend the next 10 years keeping track of him through the occasional status update. Maybe she would then remember her summer crush with a fond nostalgia that only comes from those relationships that never quite happened. That lingering almost that she’d hold onto and wonder what could have been as she’d look through her newsfeed and see photos of him and his inevitable perfect wife and kids one day.

That was the script the summer was supposed to follow.

But after the way everything in her life had been up to that point, it was probably ridiculous of her to expect anything to go the way she thought it would.

 

 

* * * * *

“Hey Skye,” he greets, that slightly wary note that has seemed to linger in his voice whenever he has spoken to her since reappearing in her life this past year.

Skye tries for something resembling a smile but it feels a lot more like a grimace as she nods at him before gesturing to the back seat of the car. “The trunk is pretty full but I left some space for you in the back.”

She slips into the driver’s seat and closes the door while he is negotiating his bag into the backseat, needing those five seconds to breathe again before he is sliding into the seat beside hers.

She’s still not used to being so close to him. Not used to him being in her life again.

He’s clean shaven again. She can see his jawline clearly, and for some reason that makes him seem so much closer to the boy she remembers than the man who suddenly came back.

She had known vaguely that he and Fitz were still in contact, even after he didn’t return to camp the next summer, but she had never pushed for any details about him. Had actively avoided them in fact. So when Fitz announced that Ward was moving to LA last year it had taken Skye by surprise, to say the least.

She had known he was going to be there. But even so, when she walked into Jemma and Fitz's house for Fitz's birthday dinner and saw Ward there for the first time, she went into a state of shock for a moment. She stood frozen in the doorway, staring at him with her mouth slightly ajar and her mind racing.

It was almost a wonder she had recognized him. His arms had filled out, his shoulders looked broader somehow, and with the full beard covering his cheeks he looked more like a lumberjack than the slightly awkward 20 year old she had known. But the way he held himself was still the same. He still had that stiff posture and slightly wary look in his eye, calculating all the risks before he ever opened his mouth. Still seemed to wait a fraction too long after a joke to laugh, as though he needed to be reminded by other people how to react.

(The way he looked at her was still the same.)

 

 

* * * * *

It’s not like she was running away from him. But when the job offer in New York came up, the fact that she wouldn’t have to see him at the weekly dinners at Jemma and Fitz’s house was definitely a check in the pro column for the job and moving across the country. The decision had proven a little hasty though. The work was interesting and the pay was incredible, but she was lonely living so far away from her friends. Working ridiculously long hours was not exactly conducive to make new friends either, leading to her having an extremely ill-advised hookup with her ex-boyfriend/current co-worker one night. She had initially intended for the move to be long term, but by the time the project came to an end Skye was ready to head back to the west coast. Naturally, that led to she and Jemma making grand plans for their cross country road trip, mapping out the towns and sights they had always wanted to see, trying to figure out how much they could cram into one week.

And now she’s stuck on that adventure with Ward.

Ward who she has not spoken any more words than strictly necessary since he came back into her life.

Ward who disappeared from her life without a word five years ago.

Ward who was the first boy she ever loved, the first person who truly made her feel like they saw  _her_. The person whose rejection had hurt the most because of that.

 

 

* * * * *

While Skye drives, the first three hours are completed in almost total silence between the two of them. She can see a few times where Ward looks like he wants to say something, his gaze flicking across to her. But she resolutely refuses to give him an opening and turns up the volume on her trashy pop playlist that she picked out specifically to irritate him, taking a special kind of glee in the way his jaw clenches as he looks out the window to hide his rolling eyes from her.

She can admit that the pleasure his annoyance gives her is petty as hell, and probably immature for someone of her supposed maturity. But it also reminds her so much of the early days of the two of them constantly bickering at camp; those are a hell of a lot easier for her to remember while she’s stuck in a car with him than the sweet moments they stole that summer in the weeks that followed.

She watches him from the corner of her eye, still trying to figure him out. There was a brief time when she thought that maybe she understood him better than anyone, but that illusion had been rudely shattered a long time ago now.

 

They stop for lunch at a diner off the highway, eating quickly and making only the necessary small talk about the plans for the trip and where they are headed that afternoon. He doesn’t seem surprised by anything she mentions, so she guesses Jemma must have given him a pretty thorough itinerary. Skye can remember when talking to him was the easiest thing in the world for her, and she feels an ache at the loss of the repartee they used to have. But then she remembers his closed off expression, stiff posture, the sudden way he shut her out, ( _“It’s just not a good idea,”_ ), and she shakes the nostalgia off.

 

 

* * * * *

The first stop on Skye and Jemma’s list of oddities to see in their journey had been Centralia, PA; the town that had been burning for over fifty years. Skye had read an article about it online years ago and the idea of it had stuck with her. So when the two of them were listing the places they wanted to see on their cross-country trek, it was high on Skye’s list.

She doesn’t say anything to Ward as she pulls over off the rarely used section of route 61. He doesn’t seem to react to her silence though, she supposes he’s grown used to it during their infrequent interactions over the past year.

Looking around at the remains of the almost ghost town causes Skye to shiver. It had once been a mining boom town, but a fire in the early 60’s had spread to the empty mines beneath the town and burned out of sight for over a decade before the town realized the full scope of the disaster. Over the next thirty years, the population dwindled from 1,400 down to less than 50 as the state condemned the town after the carbon monoxide levels rose and sinkholes began appearing in backyards. There were still some stubborn souls who refused to leave though, the houses standing like sentinels over the empty streets where homes and businesses used to be.

Nature has begun to reclaim the land; most of the streets that are left are cracked with weeds growing through. Graffiti marking the paved surfaces also speaks to the cult following the abandoned town has gained over the years, the people come to see the town that used to be.

They walk a few minutes along the road, Skye tersely telling Ward what she knows about the town. He looks so interested that she finds herself getting more animated as she speaks though, and when she glances over at him she realizes that he is focused on her and her words entirely. Before she knows it they have reached the point where the road has split and steam rises from the fire burning under their feet. As they stand before the huge crevasse splitting the asphalt, like hell is trying to break through, the smoke filtering through the ground only adding to the effect, Skye forgets for a moment to be angry at him. It feels nice, to be in his company again, just to stand beside him and look at something so truly weird.

They don’t say much as they walk back to the car, passing other sightseers in groups or pairs, but the silence feels more companionable than the earlier, tense quiet. There is something about the town that manages to be both a let down for what Skye had been expecting, as well as something so much more than she had imagined. She had been expecting something straight out of Silent Hill, a place full of ghosts and fog. Something post-apocalyptic. Instead it was just a sad reminder of what it used to be, the presence of the town marked only by its sharp absence.

She slips back into the driver’s seat when they reach the car, looking out the window at the few remaining houses as they slowly pass by.

The houses that still stand would look so normal, if it weren’t for the town around them that is missing. The occasional plumes of smoke that remind of the fire that has been steadily burning underneath them for so many years, that will continue burning for many more.

“There used to be so many people here,” she murmurs softly. It feels like the kind of place where you should whisper, like walking through a graveyard in a way. “A whole town and all those people and their history here, and then it just got wiped away like they were never here at all.”

Ward hums in agreement, his eyes focused outside the windows like hers as the remains of the town pass by.

“It’s like, no matter what we do, no matter what we build and create, there is always these reminders that mother nature can reclaim it all if she wants to. I think there’s something beautiful in that.”

“Or it’s a reminder that you probably shouldn’t burn garbage on top of a mine shaft,” Ward interjects wryly.

Skye rolls her eyes at him, feeling her old annoyance come surging back after the brief reprieve.

Ward’s expression softens as he looks at her. “You and I always did see the world differently. But that’s not a bad thing.”

She doesn’t look back at him, even though she can see his gaze on her from the corner of her eye. She doesn’t want to let herself sink into the ease that she can feel reforming between them already, even if it’s only baby steps. She wants to stay angry, needs it to keep her distance. But it’s so hard when being around him feels so easy, feels so natural. She wants to hate him for that too. Add it to the list of all the ways she feels like he has wronged her, no matter how petty it might be. So she resolutely refuses to look at him, and turns up the music instead. (Ignoring the fact that the silence between them feels something much closer to companionable now than it had all morning.)

Skye drives for another hour or so before pulling into a truck stop somewhere near the Pennsylvania/Ohio border with terrible coffee and bathrooms that look only slightly like they could be a crime scene, and then they switch without a word.

 

 

* * * * *

They stop the first night at a Motel 6 off of I-70 about an hour outside Columbus around 9pm. Separate rooms rather than the twin that Skye and Jemma had been planning. They stumble from the car with their bags slung over shoulders in silence. After nearly 13 hours on the road it’s all Skye can do to remain upright as she sticks the key into her door. Ward mumbles a goodnight to her as he passes by her on the way to his room and she manages something that might be a response through her overtired stupor.

She is so exhausted that she expects to pass out as soon as she crosses the threshold into her room. A full day in the car has left her feeling gross and a few stages beyond sweaty and uncomfortable, though, so she decides that showering before bed is absolutely necessary.

Two hours later however she is laying in bed staring at the ceiling and cursing that decision. The hot water had felt amazing, washing off the day and all of her tension, but it had also somehow given her a second wind and now she is stuck glaring at the shadow that looks a little like a T-Rex as sleep eludes her. Somewhere around the one hour mark she heard someone snoring on the other side of the wall and realized it had to be Ward, and ever since she has been unable to stop thinking about the fact that all the separates them is a thin wall between their beds.

Without him being an active presence in her life, she’s been able to remember him in whatever way she wanted to. To hold onto the hurt at the end, the emotionless robot she’d thought he was at the start. To forget all of the things he was in between that. But now he’s here again, and she’s forced to accept him as a three-dimensional person again.

Everything was a lot simpler when she could just cast him as the villain, she thinks as she finds herself being dragged down memory lane.

 

 

* * * * *

While Ward had definitely seemed to warm up to her as the first month of camp went on, to the point where Skye felt fairly comfortable calling them friends, it wasn’t until the night of the camp talent show that she actually realized he had a sense of humor.

The talent show was primarily for the campers, but it was customary for the counsellors to get up on stage and make fools of themselves to make the campers inevitably comfortable enough to do the same. The surprisingly funny side that Ward seemed to keep hidden from everyone came out when the counsellors were playing truth or dare while setting up for the show, and Skye chose dare because whoever said that truth is for wimps had never played with Jemma Simmons.

Somehow that had led to her and Ward being the opening act of the night, lip syncing to Carly Rae Jepsen.

Skye had half expected him to be stone faced through the whole thing. Instead, while he was a little stiff at first, the more ridiculous faces and over the top moves Skye threw into the routine, he began to loosen up and get into as well. Skye had trouble containing her giggles at the sight of his over-exaggerated expressions when he serenaded her with the obnoxiously catchy chorus. It was like their competitiveness came out in a way that had the two of them playing off each other perfectly with their impromptu routine, each of them goading the other into a more outlandish performance that had the entire audience in stitches by the end.

Skye found herself stumbling at one point, as he spun her into his arms, her back pressed tight against his chest firmly. There was that ridiculous crush that had begun to plant roots in her springing into full fledged warmth in her chest that eventually settled into a blush on her cheeks.

( _It’s hard to look right at you, baby._ )

After they enthusiastically bowed and walked off the stage, Skye felt that heady euphoria from laughing so much, and the look on Ward’s face - a kind of giddy glee that she had never imagined to see on him. Like he had surprised himself as much as her. Like he had never smiled quite like that before, and it had her grinning at him even more. For a few moments as the two of them stood in the wings off to the side of the stage, Skye could almost forget everyone else the existed on the other side of the curtains and it was just the two of them. She felt herself swaying closer towards him, the movement completely unconscious, the pull sudden and irresistible, just wanting more of this bubble of joy that seemed to contain the two of them.

But then Bobbi came crashing through the curtain and the spell was broken. Skye felt a little off kilter as Ward abruptly turned away and led the way back out to the main hall. It wasn’t until Skye went to walk back to her seat that she realized that her fingers were still intertwined with Ward’s, she had almost forgotten that they had held hands for their shared bow. She felt the strangest tug of regret as she pulled away from his grasp, and there was something in his expression for a moment that said she wasn’t alone in that feeling. But then his eyes flickered away from her and she was never sure if she had just imagined it.

( _But laying awake in her bunk that night she remembered that moment before Bobbi burst backstage, when she had felt herself leaning into him, and she could swear his eyes were on her lips as he moved closer to her too. She hadn’t imagined that, had she?_ )

 

 

* * * * *

The first attempt Skye makes at an actual conversation is mid-afternoon of their second day on the road, at a diner somewhere in Indiana. The first half of their meal was eaten in the same silence that has lingered between them most of the past two days in the car. As bitter as she still feels towards him, she also knows that if they keep it up this way then one of them is likely to murder the other before they reach California.

She watches him look disdainfully at her cheese fries for a few minutes longer as she tries to decide on a topic to broach to break their current stalemate. At first they awkwardly dance around the weather and gas prices and sights that are on the list. Eventually though, Skye’s curiosity breaks through and she finally asks him about what brought him back to the east coast. Jemma had been annoyingly vague about what exactly the ‘family thing’ was.

“My grandmother died,” he tells her. “I had to fly back for the funeral.”

“Gramsy?” Skye asks, feeling a stab of sympathy at the thought of him losing the woman he had spoken so lovingly of back at summer camp. The few things he’d said about the rest of his family were never good. But the occasions he would mention his grandmother or his godfather, the tension that lingered in his shoulders whenever he mentioned his family seemed to dissipate a little.

“Yeah, Gramsy.” He looks almost startled that she remembered his name for his grandmother, before smiling at her sadly. “She went peacefully, and she lived a good life. Now I don’t have any reason to go back there anymore.”

She remembers that look. That way he used to try to act like his family didn’t bother him. Like it didn’t hurt that they were not the people they pretended to be to the world. Grimacing in sympathy, she reaches over and squeezes his hand in hers. It’s a reflexive action, she doesn’t even notice that she’s done it until his eyes flick back up to hers in surprise. Skye freezes for a second before slowly extracting her hand, going back to her food with a renewed vigor. Trying to forget that momentary lapse. She changes the subject, something safer, something meaningless. When she glances up at him though, she finds him staring at her with the strangest look in his eyes, and it’s hard to pretend she didn’t feel that light squeeze of his fingers on hers as she pulled her hand away.

But if that look in his eyes really is regret then why has he never said a word to her about what happened between them?

 

Skye is quieter that afternoon. Ward drives and she doesn’t try to fight him for control of the music. Instead she is content to look out the window mostly, staring at the cornfields as they pass by without really seeing them. Instead she’s running in circles in her mind. Trying to decide if maybe Jemma is right after all. Summer camp was a long time ago, and maybe it’s time for her to move past it.

Maybe they were just two kids, too scared, too scarred, and too young to know any better. Isn’t it kind of inevitable that first loves end in first heartbreaks? Maybe it is time for her to let go of hurt feelings and move on.

Yet she has missed being his friend. Underneath all the hurt she has carried so closely for these years, that fact has still remained. No matter how much she tried to ignore it. No one else had ever filled the space he had carved out in her heart.

Trying to describe what their relationship had been like, to feel like she fit with someone so perfectly, felt like trying to explain an inside-joke to someone who didn’t understand the references. Even to their friends who had been there the whole time. There was so much with the two of them that passed so quietly in the spaces in between.

Half the time she wasn’t even totally sure if they were friends, with the way he would close himself off. The other half she wasn’t sure if they were actually so much more than that.

Ever since he came back into her life, blowing in as abruptly as he left it, she has been trying to ignore the magnetic pull she feels to him.

 

 

* * * * *

The third day on the road is mostly spent with Skye demanding they stop at every roadside attraction now that they’re finally on Route 66. Ward keeps doing that long suffering thing with his face that he does so well, but he’s doing it silently so Skye can ignore him. (She’s pretty sure that she sees him grinning at the gas station museum though.)

He drives the morning shift until they stop for lunch. (A truly surreal experience at a quaint little cafe in the middle of town where they were the only customers and the lady behind the counter kept referring to the two of them as honeymooners. The woman seems to have been somehow transplanted entirely from the 1950s. There is something slightly creepy about the liminal space the small cafe seems to exist on the edge of the former highway.)

Being the driver means that she also controls the music. Rather than continuing with the pop to torture him, Skye selects her classic rock playlist instead. By half an hour in, she’s singing along at the top of her lungs. Partially to try and coax out that squeezed lemon look onto Ward’s face. But honestly mostly just because there is something so perfectly cliche and exhilarating about the wind blowing in through her window and whipping her hair around and the power ballads building, and somewhere along the way her petty spitefulness becomes something more like actual happiness.

The wind is blowing her hair around like crazy, whipping across her eyes and probably not the safest for driving and she knows the knots are gonna be torture to brush out later. But right now this feels like freedom.

When the opening bars of "More Than A Feeling” start to play, Skye grins over at Ward as she sings along, surprised to find him looking back at her with a matching grin as the guitar riff fills the car. That’s nothing compared to her surprise when he joins her on the chorus though, hamming it up just as much as her.

The two of them are doing a kind of modified seat dancing, leaning in close over the console as they croon out the chorus. Skye’s cheeks hurt from smiling and her chest feels light and bubbly in a way she doesn’t recall feeling since that summer. ( _The two of them on stage, Ward spinning her in his arms as they danced with pantomime exaggerated expressions to the pop song blasting over the speakers. Somehow she managed to completely forget they had an audience they were performing for, so caught up in the laughter in Ward’s eyes and the fact that she was a part of it._ )

It’s one of those moments that she wishes she could freeze in her mind. A moment she would like to be able to put away in a box, to keep it safe, take it out and revisit it forever.

 

 

* * * * *

“It’s my car, Ward, I can put my feet wherever I damn well please.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s illegal. It’s definitely unsafe.”

“How is it unsafe? In what exact way am I endangering our lives by putting my feet up?” she snarks back at him.

“If the passenger side airbags go off, your knees are going straight into your skull.”

“What universe do you think we are in that I have a car with passenger side airbags?”

“Why on earth would you have a car without airbags?!”

“Do you  _know_  how many injuries are caused by airbags?”

“Do  _you_  know how many injuries are caused by your head impacting the windshield at high speed?”

“Well how about you just avoid an accident and this won’t be an issue?”

He huffs in that way she recalls so well. That patented  _lord-give-me-patience-to-deal-with-Skye_  exasperation, but he shuts up and goes back to focusing his attention on the road. She takes that as a win.

 

 

* * * * *

The more time she spends with him, the harder it is for her to push all of the good memories she has of him aside. For the last five years she’s managed to cloud any pleasant association she has of him with memories of the cold way he shut her out, the way he never tried to contact her again to explain anything at all. But now that he’s here, and he’s making her laugh again and she can’t pretend that the way he made her feel wasn’t real because he still makes her feel that way.

She remembers all the things she’s spent so long pretending weren’t real. Like the time the two of them capsized a canoe in the middle of the lake while they were arguing about proper paddling technique. They were only lucky it was just the two of them in the boat and not any campers. They had both come up under the capsized craft, disoriented in the pocket of air they found themselves in, between the surface of the water and the inside of the canoe. There was a moment between the two of them coming up for air, that she felt like they were the only people on earth. Just a moment where nothing outside mattered and it was just her and Ward, and somehow that might have been perfect. At least before the concerned shouts from the shore had led to them swim out from under the canoe to reassure everyone they were ok.

The time he taught her how to build a campfire. His hands over hers as they stacked the twigs and logs. The warmth and the butterflies that settled in her stomach and refused to go away. The way he grinned at her as he stole the marshmallow she had toasted for herself later that night. She couldn’t find it in herself to care when she got to see that grin on his face. ( _“You might not be so bad at this after all.” “Was that a compliment?” “Just a comment,” he muttered, fighting that grin. “A compliment!” she cried, smirking at him. “_ And _you’re smiling. Are you dying? Do I need to take you to the nurse?”_ )

Or Ward jumping off the dock with her in his arms during some game that she has forgotten, a war whoop echoing across the lake as she shrieked. The campers and counsellors alike cheering in the background and all she could focus on was the way he held her close even as they surfaced, his gaze lingering on her lips just a second too long to be dismissed.

There was a ridiculous amount of questions from the younger campers about whether she and Ward were  _in love_ , always asked with eyes gleaming and massive grins.

(Skye never knew quite how to answer those.)

Apparently their slightly charged bickering had become a source of extreme entertainment to everyone else in the camp, Jemma had cheerfully informed Skye. Even Coulson and May were apparently a part of their amused audience. Skye didn’t think they were in on the betting pool that Hunter started however. She had only found out about that later, after everything had turned sour.

 

 

* * * * *

“Why exactly did we have to drive two hours out of our way to see this?”

“Uh, it’s the World’s Largest Peanut, Ward; why  _wouldn’t_  you want to see it?”

“It’s less than 3 feet,” he retorts. “That cannot possibly be the biggest peanut in the world.”

“So your complaint is not so much about the detour and more about the fact that you’re disappointed by the peanut?”

“It’s the principle of the thing. If you’re gonna claim you’ve got the ‘World’s Biggest’, then you should deliver on that promise.”

Skye can’t quite resist an opening like that. She smirks and lets her gaze drop to where the front of his shirt is tucked behind his belt buckle, raising her eyebrows as she looks back up at his face. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

She’s expecting Ward to look annoyed and ignore her. Maybe do that jaw clenching thing. So the smirk that flickers across his face for a second before he turns away from her and back to the (admittedly disappointing) statue takes her by surprise. The Ward she knew had always seemed a little flustered by the occasional provocative remarks she would make to get a rise out of him. The glimpses she has gotten on this trip of a different, confident, almost cocky side of him keep knocking her slightly off balance.

(She doesn’t hate it though.)

(Which is exactly the problem.)

 

 

* * * * *

By their fifth day on the road, it feels like something has shifted between them. Like maybe they actually might be able to get back to something close to the friendship they used to have. It’ll never be exactly the same, she’ll never be able to let go completely of the hurt she has carried with her so long that it almost feels like a part of her. But it feels nice to enjoy his company again.

They drive through New Mexico and cross the border into Arizona before lunchtime. For the first time, Skye almost feels a little apprehensive at how soon they are gonna make it back to LA. At the start of the week she couldn’t imagine anything worse than being stuck in a car with Ward. Now though, even though her old feelings still linger, she feels nervous at the thought of what things will be like when they’re back home. When they’re back among their friends and their real lives. Will the tentative friendship they have rebuilt on this trip be cut off just like what happened last time? Or is this going to last and they might actually be friends again?

 

 

* * * * *

Ward seems more excited about Canyon de Chelly than he has about anything else on Skye and Jemma’s list. Skye can’t blame him though, it looks amazing from the rim and only gets better as they descend to the bottom of the canyon.

The companionable feeling, practically bordering on friendliness, that has settled between them feels even stronger now that they are actually away from the car somehow. They even manage to joke with each other as they hike to the ruins, slipping back into their old patterns far easier than she would have thought possible.

All of that comfort and ease disappears the moment a friendly middle aged tourist asks Skye to take a photo of her and her husband in front of the monument. Then ever so helpfully offers to take a photo of “you and your handsome boyfriend” in return. Neither Skye or Ward look at each other as Skye mumbles a refusal that she hopes doesn’t sound as freaked out as it does in her head. The easy camaraderie of their journey down has definitely faded to something with a touch more awkwardness as they start their way back. Neither of them mentions the woman or her mistake, but they also don’t seem capable of laughing it off either. It’s what Skye would do if it happened with any other male friend of hers, but with Ward it cuts too close. So the return trip is far more silent than the way down. Skye is grateful for the Fall chill to the air as they hike their way back up the steep incline. When they reach the trailhead once again, rather than heading straight back for the car, the two of them walk along the rim of the canyon. There was no discussion, more like an instinctive understanding. Skye tries not to think too hard about that as they settle down on a bench to watch the sunset.

They don’t have to wait long before the sun begins it’s descent. The red walls of the canyon deepen in color as the last fingers of golden light fall over them.

“It’s beautiful,” she murmurs softly, almost afraid to speak too loudly and break the spell of the moment.

From beside her, Ward hums in agreement, but when she glances over at him he isn’t looking at the sunset at all. His gaze is fixed on her instead, that look in his eyes that she remembers from all those years ago, like he couldn’t look at anything but her. When he catches her staring back he smiles, bobbing his head a little awkwardly as he quickly looks away, fixing his stare over the canyon. Skye could swear the tips of his ears look a little pink, but it’s hard to tell with the sunset bathing the entire world in tones of red and gold.

She feels something warm settle low in her belly at the memory of that look in his eye though, at all of the memories it evokes in her, the ones she has spent so long trying to forget. ( _Ward’s hand gripping hers as he steadied her while she leapt across the last stepping stone in the brook, his touch lingering a second longer than it needed to. The look on his face that night by the campfire, surrounded by all the other counsellors and yet somehow he made her feel like there was no one else in the world. That night on their backs on the archery field, looking at the stars, Ward’s fingers grazing hers under the cover of darkness and that shivering warmth that spread through her body, that sense of anticipation that built in her bones._ )

 

 

* * * * *

The camp always had a dance in the last week of summer - with a theme and everything. Skye and Jemma’s cabin was aflutter in the hours leading up to it. The counsellors had laughed indulgently at their girls as they scrambled about trying to turn their camp clothes in semi-formal wear, acting like they were way too mature now and able to look back on that pre-adolescent angst with a certain fond nostalgia of leaving your teen years. (Completely ignoring the fact that they too were shoving their way in to get some mirror space before they all rushed out the door.)

The mess hall had been decorated to look like a tropical island, palm trees, twinkle lights, and crepe paper leis. It had somehow been both tacky as hell and kind of magical.

Skye never went to prom, never got asked to any school dance, and was never anywhere long enough to have a group of friends to go with. As cheesy as this was, it was the perfect school dance she had always wanted. All she needed was the perfect romantic hero to swoop in and make the movie moment complete.

And, like her fantasies had somehow summoned him, Ward appeared and asked her to dance. He tried to brush it off by saying that the counsellors needed to get it started or the campers would sit on the sidelines all night. He’d waved a had at the handful of other pairs out on the floor - Mack and Elena with stars in their eyes, Jemma and Fitz busting out the goofiest moves Skye had ever seen, Bobbi and Hunter looking like they were about to start fighting already - as evidence, but there was something almost bashful about the way he wouldn’t quite meet her gaze.

The song had changed to a slow one as he took her hand and led her out to the floor. The two of them swayed awkwardly like a pair of middle schoolers at first, with a solid five inches between their bodies. Finally Hunter came up to them and rolled his eyes as he let them know he thought they looked ridiculous, and that insult from  _Hunter_  of all people was enough to get Skye to wrap her arms around Ward’s shoulders as she stepped a little closer to him. His hands seemed to hover uncertainly for a second before they wrapped around her waist with a little more confidence. (When Skye laid her head to rest against his chest, tucking under his chin and burrowing deeper into the warmth of him, she could swear she felt his heart pounding through the fabric of his shirt against her ear.)

She couldn’t say later what the song was that had played, or even if they’d danced to one song or five, but she knew that moment was one that she wished she could freeze and live in forever.

(If life  _was_  a teen romantic comedy, that would have been the moment where the credits rolled across the screen. But Skye’s life had never been movie perfect and that night was no different.)

 

 

* * * * *

It’s not until they step into the room that Skye remembers she had booked it when she was planning on travelling with Jemma. At the time, the fact that they only had a room with one bed available was really not an issue. Now that her travel companion is Ward, however, things are not looking nearly so uncomplicated.

A quick check down at the front desk confirms that yes, this is still the only room available, and the last cot was just taken.

The two of them return to the room and stand before the bed like it’s some kind of no man’s land on a battlefield and neither one of them wants to be the one to break the stalemate. Eventually Skye is the one to throw back the quilt and take a pillow from the pile at the head of the bed, placing it in the middle. “There, it’s our own wall of Jericho.”

With that, she grabs her toiletries bag and heads to the bathroom. It’s only after the door is closed behind her, looking into the mirror as she brushes her teeth, that Skye allows herself a moment of complete panic at the idea of sharing a bed with Ward. By the time she has taken about as long as is acceptably possible to brush her teeth and wash her face she counts to 10, squares her shoulders and marches back out to the bed.

Ward has changed his jeans for black sweats while she was in the bathroom, she notes as she throws her toiletries bag in the general vicinity of her suitcase, tying her hair up into a loose bun. She does her best to ignore it, but her treacherous brain is teaming up with her hormones to point out just how attractive he looks in the low slung sweatpants. His t-shirt hugs his shoulders in a way that is frankly unfair. She looks away before he can catch her watching him, busying herself with settling under the covers as he heads towards the bathroom. She switches out the lamp on her side of the bed, praying that she’ll fall asleep before he returns even though she knows it’s pointless. There is no way she is falling asleep anytime soon, not with the current of anxiety running through her. Possibly not at all tonight, if she really thinks about it. She’s currently rethinking her stance on sleeping on the floor, but she knows she’s being ridiculous. She’s a grown up. She is 25 years old goddammit, she can platonically share a bed. The fact that it’s with her ex… something should have no bearing on the matter.

She’s just about managed to convince herself it’s all gonna be fine by the time he comes out of the bathroom. And then of course, he ruins absolutely everything by sliding into the bed on the other side of her makeshift pillow wall.

Even with her back to him, it’s like she can’t escape her awareness of him. Her entire body feels like it is thrumming with nervous energy, pooling in a swirling pit in her stomach. Ward is still for a moment after pulling the quilt back over himself, and it almost sounds like he’s holding his breath for a moment before he reaches up to turn out his lamp.

“Goodnight, Skye,” his voice comes through the darkness. He sounds faintly hoarse, but she’s not sure if she’s just projecting.

“Night,” she manages in return, her face pressed into her pillow.

There is complete silence in the room for about seven minutes. After that though, the twitchy feeling that started in Skye’s stomach has worked its way outward and spread to her feet and she can’t stop fidgeting. Pretty soon the restlessness has spread to all her limbs and she finds herself shifting, trying to get comfortable, trying to do anything that will help her forget that Ward is less than two feet away from her.

His irritated growl from the other side of the bed proves that this is going to be impossible however. “Skye, I swear to god, if you don’t stop tossing and turning and shaking the entire bed, I am going to wrap you up in that goddamn quilt like it’s a straitjacket.”

For a second Skye is frozen in silence, before indignation sets in and she rolls over to face him, ready to unleash her fury on him. Ward is already rolling over to meet her though, his eyes finding hers in the dark as he glares at her warningly. “I have spent the last five days in a car with you blasting Justin Bieber to torture me, and I have accepted it with it without a word. But if you don’t let me sleep, I will not be held responsible for my actions.”

He rolls over so his back is facing her again and Skye is left to stick her tongue out at his back in the darkness. Feeling petty and irritated at him again, she makes sure to jostle the entire bed as she flops over onto her back. Ward retaliates by throwing the pillow between them at her face without even rolling over to look at her while doing it. Skye hugs the pillow to her chest and glares at him, but she stops rolling around. Instead she stares at the ceiling in the dark, counting sheep - and when that doesn’t work, mentally coding - as she tries to shut her mind down enough to sleep. She remains intensely aware of Ward beside her. Finally she breaks her stare-off with the shadows on the ceiling and looks over at him. Her eyes have adjusted enough to the dimness that she can make out the darker shadow of him against the darkness of the room. His military stiff posture doesn’t let her know if he’s awake or asleep, and eventually she finds herself being lulled to sleep by the steady sound of his deep and even breaths.

 

 

* * * * *

She wakes up with her face pressed into something warm. Of course it’s only after she has snuggled deeper and let out a fairly embarrassing noise of contentment that her sleep fogged brain clicks that the warmth under her cheek is Ward’s shoulder.

At some point during the night, the space between them disappeared. Clearly without the pillow barrier in place, nothing was there to stop them from moving closer. Ward is half on his side, turned towards her, and Skye is curled up facing him. Her head is tucked into the nook of his shoulder, her legs tangled around one of his, and her hand is curled next to his hip.

As much as she knows she should move before he wakes up, she wants to linger in the warmth of him. She never got to wake up in his arms. Never had the chance before. Even though there is a slightly bittersweet ache that tugs at her heart, all she wants to do is snuggle closer and enjoy this moment for as long as she can keep it.

His t-shirt has ridden up and her hand on his stomach is resting dangerously close to the waistband of his sweatpants. Without conscious permission her fingers lightly trace along that narrow border of fabric and flesh.

She is so focused on the feel of his skin under her fingertips that the hitch of his breath when she grazes over his hipbone is the first warning she has that he’s awake.

Skye freezes, her cheeks flaming in mortification as her brain scrambles to list all of the boundaries of acceptable behaviour she has just crossed. She goes to snatch her hand back and roll away to the other side of the bed and see if it really is possible to actually die of embarrassment. (Or maybe she can pretend to be asleep. Sleep fondling is totally a thing, right?)

Before she can move, Ward’s hand comes down to hold her’s, trapping it in place against his hip. Neither of them move for a second, both seeming to hold their breathe in the stillness. And then, so tentatively soft, his fingertips caress hers. The shiver that starts at his touch feels almost like an electric shock. Every single one of her nerve endings on alert as his fingers slowly graze over her knuckles before moving to her wrist.

Skye’s breath stills as he glides up her arm, goosebumps trailing his touch, afraid to move or even blink in case it breaks this strange spell they seem to be under. Her head is still tucked against his shoulder, her eyes hidden from his, and somehow that lack of eye contact makes this feel almost surreal. Like it’s a dream, and she doesn’t want to wake up. All of the reasons to keep her distance, to protect her heart, have fled from her mind in the moment. He pauses with his hand on her shoulder, and for a moment she thinks he is going to push her away. She does breathe then, a sharp inhale as how badly she wants this,  _needs this_ , washes over her right at the moment it might be taken away. But he doesn’t push her away. Just pauses for a moment with his hand cupping her shoulder, his fingers tightening at her hitched breath, before sliding up to her jaw and tilting her chin up to face him.

Skye’s eyes are closed when he kisses her. It seems crazy that she should remember what his kisses tasted like after all these years, but there is something so familiar about it all the same. His hand cupping her jaw, before sliding it into her hair to hold her closer, feels the same. His lips coaxing hers open so tenderly, before deepening the kiss with a sudden fierceness as she tangles her fingers in his hair. He groans into her mouth as she scratches the nape of his neck. It all feels so familiar, like coming home again.

Nobody else has ever affected her the way that he does. It’s like a fever in her blood as she grasps at him, tugging him closer restlessly as her need for him settles into a heavy throbbing ache between her thighs. One of his legs slips between hers, pressing hard against her, and Skye groans in relief into their kiss as she rocks against it. Ward chuckles, the sound low and almost a growl as Skye’s head falls back, the friction of his thigh against her clit sending a shudder of pleasure through her. With her mouth out of reach, he turns his attention to her throat, gently nipping and kissing his way down to her shoulder. When he scrapes his teeth over her clavicle, a white hot flare burns across the back of her eyelids, her hips grinding down even harder. Her orgasm is sharp and sudden when it hits, almost taking her by surprise as she tumbles over the edge. Ward’s face is still buried in her throat, one hand in her hair and the other on her waist as she shudders through the aftershocks.

She is still for a moment, breathing hard as she stares up at the ceiling without actually seeing anything. Her mind is still fogged with desire, her orgasm just barely taking the edge off. She is already reaching for him to pull him closer for another kiss.

And then the shrill sound of an alarm clock comes blaring through the wall above their heads.

They jerk away from each other sharply at the noise, both of them breathing hard as they freeze, limbs still tangled and breath still mingling as they hover just inches away. For one aching moment, Skye’s desire for him feels strong enough that she is almost ready to let go of five years of resentment and bitterness, and she can feel herself leaning back into him already.

Only to feel like she’s just been doused with a bucket of ice water when Ward’s hand on her shoulder gently pushes her back. Her eyes snap open again to find him looking back at her with that inscrutable mask. It’s the first time they’ve actually made eye contact since this whole thing started, and somehow it breaks the spell she has been under since waking up with her body wrapped up in his. She is already shifting away from him awkwardly when he speaks.

“Skye, wait,” he starts, whispers almost, the words still loud enough to shatter the moment.

Skye doesn’t give him a chance to finish whatever rejection speech he has planned this time. She can already feel the blood rushing to her cheeks, embarrassment and anger warring for top spot on her emotional dance card. Her legs tangle in the sheets as she pushes away from him, struggling to get up and stumbling over them.

“Skye,” Ward entreats, and she can see his hand reaching for her before dropping back to the bed uncertainly out of the corner of her eye.

( _“It’s just not a good idea, you know? It’s not a good time for us to start something.”_ )

She shakes her head violently when he tries to speak. The words that have haunted her for all these years still echoing in her mind. How stupid could she be to end up in the exact same place again after all this time?

“It’s not a good time, right?” She mutters acidly, not looking at him as she storms toward the bathroom and slams the door behind her.

 

 

* * * * *

It happened the night of that stupid dance, while she was riding the high of being the star of her own personal teen romance.

After their dance, Ward had been pulled aside by Coulson, who murmured that he had a phone call in the main office. Skye had been a little concerned, phone calls from home weren’t exactly regular and especially not for her and Ward, but he had squeezed her hand reassuringly before he walked away.

She wandered towards the snack table, in need of a distraction and also a reason to avoid the smirking faces of several of her friends as they watched her watch Ward leave. Trip was manning the punch bowl and he grinned at her approach, opening his mouth to speak. Skye braced herself for some comment about finally making her move but thankfully one of her campers came running up almost in tears over some slight, so she was able to cut Trip off before he could finish whatever it was he was about to say.

Fixing the eleven-year old’s drama was a good distraction, but eventually Skye began to realize that Ward had never returned after Coulson drew him away. Over an hour had passed and she began to feel concerned, checking the deck outside the mess hall and then the office itself. There was no sign of him. When she asked Coulson (clearly with not the casual tone she was hoping for, judging by the way he looked at her), he told her that Ward had received some bad news from home and needed a little time. Skye nodded and tried to leave it at that, but the gnawing feeling in her stomach only grew and it wasn’t long before she was headed for the door to search him out.

She headed for the cabins first, the boys side being closer to the mess hall than the girls. His and Fitz’s cabin was empty. But when she turned around on the porch and stared out at the camp in the near dark, she spotted a darker form sitting on the archery field off to her right.

Skye watched him for a moment. It was hard to tell which way he was facing, but his body language was clearly protective even from this distance. She thought about leaving him alone, but there was a slight chill to the air this far north, even on a summer evening. She turned back into the cabin to grab a light blanket off the end of the bed that she could easily tell was his. The walls above Fitz’s bed were covered with photos of himself and Jemma, his mother, and of their friends from camp. All that Ward had decorating his sleeping area was some sort of lopsided dreamcatcher clearly made by a camper in arts and crafts, and a bandana looped over the corner of the bunk. Skye looked closer and her cheeks warmed as she realized that it was hers, from a particularly heated color war a few weeks earlier. Ward had managed to get her bandana, but she never realized that he’d kept it. She smiled to herself, the warmth from her cheeks settling in her stomach as she pulled the blanket that was hanging over the end of the bed into her arms and headed for the archery field. If he wanted to be left alone, she’d give him the blanket and leave. That’s what she told herself anyway, even though she knew it was mostly a lie. If he was hurting, it would take a lot to make her leave.

When she approached him, he looked up at her with clear eyes. He didn’t look happy, but he didn’t seem annoyed at her presence either.

She shifted on her feet a little awkwardly, holding out the blanket in her arms. “I thought you might get cold out here.”

The moon had risen and gave off enough light to make out his features reasonably well in the shadows. He smiled at her. It was a little forced, not quite encompassing his whole mouth. He reached out to take the blanket from her but she ignored him, leaning down to wrap it around his shoulders instead. She hovered uncertainly afterwards. She didn’t want to leave him, but she wasn’t sure he wanted her there either.

Then he shifted, holding up the edge of the blanket by his side. “You can stay, if you want.”

His voice was a little hoarse, but Skye didn’t comment on it. She just settled gratefully into the space beside him, settling the blanket around her shoulders.

For a long time the two of them sat in silence, staring up at the skies. She could hear the dance beginning to wind down, the campers heading back to their cabins. She felt a little guilty, but she wasn’t on bed-check duty so technically she doesn’t have to be there. And Ward did seem comforted by her presence. Eventually he started to point out constellations, his voice low as he named the stars. Skye knew a lot of the basic ones already, but there was something sweet about the way he wanted to share this with her. Gradually the two of them shifted, laying down on the blanket on the grass and staring up at the sky. They weren’t quite touching, but Skye could feel the graze of their fingers every now and then and it sent shivers of anticipation through her. They lay like that for what felt like hours, until she couldn’t hear any sounds from the camp around them anymore. Until the night settled in around them and it felt like they were the only living things left in the world.

Ward told her about his godfather, who used to take him camping in the woods and taught him everything he knows about survival, taught him all about the stars. He hadn’t told her a lot about his family during the summer, but the little bit he had was enough to know how much it must have meant for him to have someone like that growing up. Someone on his side. From the stories he had told her it sounded like his Gramsy and his godfather were the only people he truly counted on. Rolling towards her, he finally told her that was what the phone call tonight was about. His godfather had a heart attack and they weren’t sure if he’d pull through.

“I know John wouldn’t want us all crowded around his bedside,” he said. “But I just feel so useless not being there.”

Skye had rolled over to face him as well, and as she watched his face she searched her mind for something comforting to say. Her mind was blank though. She’d never had a family, never had anything close. She didn’t know anything about what he was going through. Ward smiled at her though, reaching for her, cupping her cheek in his hand. “I’m glad you found me.”

She leaned in and kissed him. She wasn’t sure what else she could do, with his voice sounding that soft and tender, with that look in his eyes as he gazed at her, with his hand on her cheek.

For a second she worried she’d made a horrible mistake. One split second of panic, like being suspended in mid-air before a fall. And then Ward’s hand was sliding into her hair, pulling her closer, deepening the kiss. His mouth sought hers like a man on the brink of starvation, like she was sustenance. It stole her breath, this sudden need of his unleashed. But she didn’t need to breathe - she had him. That was all she needed.

Her lips felt raw and bruised by the time they finally pulled back to catch their breath. Ward’s eyes glittered in the moonlight, some emotion in them that she couldn’t place. All she could do was nod at his unspoken question when his hands went to the hem of her shirt.

It was rough and frantic, but somehow still so tender. His lips on her skin, his hands mapping the shape of her. Her sneakers and shorts were discarded carelessly. His fingers tentative and slowly growing confident as he slipped between her thighs and made the stars in the sky above her explode. The way he looked at her, like she was something holy as she lay beneath him in the moonlight, grass under her head. His fingers fumbled as he tried to unbuckle his belt and so she took over for him, smiling up at him when he growls as her hand wrapped around him.

He wasn’t her first, but he was the first one who had ever meant so much to her. The first time the waves of pleasure that sparked through her made her want to cry out, and made her want to cry.

They way they shifted together was awkward at first, his movements uncertain after he had sunk inside her with a half-smothered groan. Gradually though, with her hands on his back urging him on, he seemed to gain confidence. He learned what made her gasp and did it again and again until she cried out his name, her fingers digging into his shoulders hard enough to leave marks.

When he came, he was silent. He watched her face the entire time, until he couldn’t keep his eyes open, biting his bottom lip between his teeth until he broke the skin. After, she pulled him close and kissed his ravaged lip gently, tasting the coppery tang of his blood on her tongue as she cradled him in her arms. The two of them lay like that, almost naked and wrapped up in each other, until the sky began to lighten with the first hint of dawn. The grass around the blanket was damp with early morning dew and there was a hint of it on their clothes as they slowly redressed in silence.

Skye still felt the heady euphoria of the night as she reached down to tie her shoes, but when she looked back at Ward she noticed that he was already dressed and standing. From the moment they had pulled out of each other’s arms it felt like he was slipping away from her. His movements were jerky as he helped her stand, and he looked for a moment like he wanted to pull her into his arms again and kiss her. Instead, he just asked if she would be alright on her own getting back to the cabin. Skye wrapped her arms around herself and nodded, confusion filling her.  _What had happened to the Ward who had kissed her like she was the only thing he had ever needed?_

Suddenly she wanted to cry, and when she looked at Ward, she could almost swear he felt the same. She wanted to speak, wanted to ask him what was wrong. But somehow it felt like the intimacy they had shared had broken the ease of their friendship they had built over the summer. She didn’t know where they stood now. Instead they both said hoarse goodnights and hovered awkwardly like they wished they could say more, before she turned away and headed back for the girls’ cabins. When she reached the edge of the archery field, she turned back and saw Ward still standing where she had left him, watching her walk away. For a second she thought about walking back to him, kissing him and demanding answers. But then he turned and walked away. The only evidence that either of them had ever been there was the rumpled blanket abandoned on the grass. Skye walked back to her cabin with tears stinging behind her eyes.

Ward avoided her for the next two days. It wasn’t exactly easy when they were still confined to the camp. But wherever she was, he managed not to be.

Eventually she cornered him during counsellor free time on the third afternoon. She had moved through hurt and into anger by that time.

Ward wouldn’t meet her eye, looking at the trees over her shoulder instead as he told her, “It’s just not a good idea, you know? It’s not a good time for us to start something.”

Skye stared at him in disbelief as he spoke, the cliches falling heavily around her. ( _Because of course this was what happened when you broke through the hard exterior of the camp bad boy and he made you feel like you were the only person in the world that mattered._ ) Her life was not a movie, it never had been. This was reality. And reality was that the bad boy was bad news and would break your heart.

She had turned and walked away from him without a word, pride and hurt keeping her from looking back.

The distance that sprung up between the two of them in the final days of camp was obvious to everyone, quickly becoming the hot topic of gossip between their friends. The questions ranged from intrusive to caring, but Skye never answered a single one. She couldn’t.

It was mostly embarrassment that kept her from telling them. But a part of it was that old fear too. They’d been Ward’s friends first. Or at least known him longer than they’d known her. If she made a thing about it, if it came down to picking sides, she was afraid that she would be the one who would lose.

Later, when she knew she was safe in her friendships, there was still something that kept her from telling them. By that point though, they’d stopped badgering her for answers about what exactly had come between them. Those memories of the starlit sky and dew damp grass beneath her feet, the way Ward looked at her, the tenderness in the way he touched her - all of those were hers alone. Hers alone to reconcile with the coldness that came after.

 

 

* * * * *

When Skye finally makes her way out of the bathroom, Ward is sitting awkwardly on the bed. His bag is still neatly packed beside him and for a second she feels a sharp stab of fear that he’s about to leave. Then she realizes that’s ridiculous. The whole reason any of this happened is that they’re stuck on this roadtrip from hell together. And why would her first reaction to him deciding to catch a bus be fear? She should be praying he’ll leave. Her head is a confusing mix of anger, self-recrimination, and doubts. Anger at least is the easiest one to hold onto. The clearest one to act on.

“I’ll take my bag down to the car while you shower,” her tone is brusque to the point of cold. She can’t quite meet his eye or else she knows she won’t be able to pretend that the last hour never happened, so instead she focuses on a spot on the wall behind him. “Meet me in the lobby and then we can check out and get on the road.”

Ward just nods silently and grabs his duffel in one hand as he heads towards the bathroom. Skye still can’t look at him, but there is a maddening small tinge of lust that she is very aware of as he brushes past her. She shivers as her thighs clench against her will, and glares even harder at the closed bathroom door. She hates him. Hates the way he affects her. Hates that she let this happen again.

 

 

* * * * *

Two tense and silent hours in the car later, and Skye is desperately wishing that one of them had elected to take the bus after all. Neither of them has spoken a single word in that entire time and Skye can’t even bring herself to break the silence by putting on music. Instead they’re stuck in a bubble of tension so thick she’s pretty sure one of them is going to choke.

Either that or she is going to shove Ward out of the car.

He keeps sending her these hurt looks that she catches from the corner of her eye while she pretends to be entirely focused on the road ahead. What right does he have to look hurt?! He is the one who rejected her.  _Again_.

It’s almost a relief when the car starts making a strange knocking sound. She glances over to Ward in alarm, but as he opens his mouth to speak there is a jerk followed by a much louder clunk from under the hood before the engine stops altogether.

Skye stares in disbelief at the road ahead as the car rolls to a stop.

They sit in silence for a moment and Skye tries to turn the engine over again. All the she is rewarded with is a slight grinding sound followed by another sharp clank.

The silence between them for another full minute before Ward finally breaks it.

“When did you last check your oil?”

Skye turns to him, glaring hard. “I checked it before I left, what kind of idiot do you think…”

Her voice trails off as she thinks back over those final days between Jemma’s phone call and their departure. She’d meant to check it before embarking on the road trip, but the change of plans and travel partners had thrown her for such a loop that now she can’t actually remember if she did or not.

“Shit.”

Thankfully, this time Ward manages to keep his mouth shut. She can see how much he wants to make some sort of snarky condescending comment though.

Skye pops the hood and steps out of the car before giving him a chance. The engine is still too hot too touch and as she stands there peering into it, she realizes she doesn’t have a clue what she is supposed to be looking for anyway. The sound of a door closing is all the warning she gets before she feels Ward come to stand beside her. He’s looking at the engine like he  _might_  actually know something about it, but she’s not sure if that is real or just general male posturing. She feels her skin itch just from the proximity of him, his arm brushing against hers as he leans in closer, and she has to move. She uses walking around the car to check for any oncoming traffic as an excuse to put some distance between them.

They had opted for the most direct route from Chinle to the Grand Canyon, rather than the most commonly travelled. Skye is regretting that decision now as she looks at the empty horizon. She hasn’t seen another car go by in at least half an hour.

Looking down at her phone, she isn’t even surprised to see that she has no signal. Of course the universe would trap her in the middle of the godforsaken desert with Ward. Today of all days. Of course.

All of a sudden everything just feels too overwhelming. The last three months in New York, away from everyone who made her feel like they actually knew her. The last five days stuck with Ward and all of the memories that have been threatening to drown her. The last few hours and the awful mix of shame and arousal that still lingers. And now this. Stranded and facing a bill for who-knew-how-much-it-was-going-to-cost to get a tow and repair, even when they did finally manage flag someone down.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” she yells in frustration, her voice rolling out across the desolate landscape.

“Because that’s definitely helpful,” she hears Ward mutter from behind her.

Whirling on him, Skye jabs a finger in his direction. “You! This is your fault!”

“How on earth could  _any_  of this be my fault?” he asks her incredulously.

“Why the hell did you come on this trip with me?!” she cries. “I wouldn’t have forgotten to check the oil if Jemma hadn’t thrown that at me at the last minute. Why would you agree to this? How is this not torture for you as well?”

It’s the closest either of them have really gotten to acknowledging the fact that there was something between them once upon a time. Ward can’t hold her gaze.

“Jemma told me you needed help,” He finally responds. The comment is more directed at the pebbles at his feet than her though. He looks more like the sullen boy she first met than the man he is now.

Skye scoffs. “Right, because you’ve always cared so much about what I need.”

He does look up at her now, something startled in his expression that she can’t quite read. He is silent for a long moment before he finally speaks, like he’s choosing his words carefully. They still come out wrong.

“Look,” ( _Oh great, he’s using that wonderful ‘I’m completely reasonable and you’re acting like a child’ tone._ ) “I think we can both agree that what happened this morning...was a bad idea.”

His eyes search her face as he speaks though. Almost like he’s waiting for some sort of disagreement from her. Her pride is still stinging though and she refuses to give him the satisfaction.

“Forget it ever happened,” she says, turning away and trying to mentally calculate how long it would take her to walk back to the buildings they passed twenty minutes ago. Calling it a town would be generous, but there might be a landline there to call a tow truck.

“Skye,” he calls warningly as if he can see where her thoughts are going. “Don’t be an idiot, we don’t have enough water for you to wander off in the desert and that place didn’t even look inhabited.”

By this point, on this particular day, this particular week, even this particular year, Skye is so far beyond being able to take a comment like that from Ward.

Rounding on him, she snaps in exasperation. “So what is your genius idea then, oh mighty Robot?”

Ward rolls his eyes and she can see that muscle in his jaw tick. “Well, first of all, we need an actual  _plan_  before marching off half-cocked, headed for God knows where.”

“I have a plan,” Skye retorts. “Walk back the way we came; find a phone; get a tow; never see your face again.”

Ward is glaring back at her now, and the heat in his voice is surprising to her. He has always kept himself so tightly in check, but something seems to have knocked his composure now. “Or we could actually talk about what happened like grown-ups instead of you running away on a fool’s errand.”

Skye stares at him in disbelief. “ _Talk?_  Are you freaking kidding me, Ward? You want to accuse  _me_  of running away from things right now?”

“You’re the one that locked herself in the bathroom for an hour, who hasn’t said more than two words to me all morning.”

“Well that’s one way of looking at it I guess. Another way is just that you’re  _wrong_ , but what is that saying again? You say ‘po-tay-to,’ I say you’re an asshole.” Skye snarls at him.

“Always has to be a snarky quip for you, doesn’t it?’ He mutters exasperatedly. “What are you so scared of Skye?”

The bark of laughter bursts out so sharply that it startles even her.

“What am  _I_  so scared of? Are you kidding me Ward?! You’re the one that ran away and has refused to even acknowledge what happened between us, what the hell are  _you_  afraid of?”

She doesn’t think he’s going to respond at first. His posture screams out avoidance with every fibre of his being. Tense and half ready to bolt. This at least is familiar to her, she thinks with a sharp ache as she remembers the way he ran from her that night.

But then he turns back and takes a step towards her, looking like a man approaching battle, weary and vulnerable when he speaks.

“You.”

Skye reels back like the soft spoken word was a blow. She stares at him in confusion.

“You have terrified me since the day we met.” There is resignation in his tone, but something like relief too. Like this empty desert highway is a confessional of sorts and he is finally unburdening his soul. “I had never met anyone like you, and I didn’t know how to be around you. But I didn’t know how to leave you alone either. You made me weak - you  _make_  me weak. I spent my whole life learning not to need anyone and then you came along and you made me need you. Meeting you was like coming up for air and I never even knew I hadn’t been breathing. It was…”

He trails off for a second, looking out to the horizon before finally meeting her eyes. “It was terrifying. I felt like if I tried to love you, all I would do was break you, because that’s all that ever happened to anyone I cared about. So I ran away from you instead.”

Skye stares at him, feeling almost numb as his words wash over her. Turning the shape of them around in her mind until she can make them make some sort of sense.

“Why haven’t you ever said any of this before?” she finally asks, still feeling dazed from his confession.

“Because you hated me,” he says simply. “When I moved to LA and I saw you again, I thought… But you hated me. And I understood, I know I deserve it. I thought it was better to leave you alone.”

Skye isn’t even aware of moving. One second she’s standing in the middle of the road gaping at Ward, and the next she’s standing in front of him.

Her fingers curl into the front his shirt as she presses her body up against his and kisses him with everything she’s got. Ward is frozen for a second, and then his arms are around her, hauling her closer as they stumble blindly across the tarmac. It’s like a dam has been unleashed, as five years of hurt and desire come pouring out at once, their lips fierce and bruising as they kiss.

Skye isn’t even aware that he is moving her back towards the car until she bumps into it. Without breaking the kiss she scrambles up to sit on the edge of the trunk. The hot surface of the car against the back of her bare legs causes her to hiss in pain and surprise. Ward pulls back to look at her in concern, but her hands are already dragging him back in to kiss her again.

His hands fist in her hair as he deepens the kiss and her legs wrap around his hips to draw him closer. She can feel his erection push against her through her jeans. The tension from their abruptly cut off makeout session this morning is still lingering under the surface and it doesn’t take much for that spark to flare back into a flame. Ward groans as she rolls her hips against him, one of his hands sliding down from her hair to rub against her through her shorts. Skye’s breath is coming in sharp bursts, her fingers digging into his shoulders as he nips at her jaw. Time loses all meaning, the only thing she is aware of is his body against hers.

So it’s quite a rude awakening when someone lays on their horn right beside them.

They break apart and look around them with the dazed expressions of sleepwalkers, to the apparent amusement of the driver who pulled over. From the look on his face he’s been trying to get their attention for a little while now.

Nodding towards the hood, still propped open, their sudden savior leans his elbow on the window as he speaks wryly. “Sorry to disturb you kids, but you looked like you might need some help.”

 

 

* * * * *

Skye is woken up at 4am by a slightly manic looking Ward gently shaking her arm and kissing her cheek.

The car was towed to Flagstaff and diagnosed with a blown engine, so Skye had spent the evening alternating between freaking out about how on earth she was going to afford to the repair and being thoroughly distracted by Ward. In the end his hands and mouth had proved a far greater distraction than her worries and she had fallen asleep, sated and exhausted, sometime around midnight. She had grand plans for sleeping late and lazy morning sex, but apparently Ward has other ideas.

“Come on,” he tells her, pushing her sweater into her arms and half putting it on for her when she reacts too slow for him.

“Ward, what the hell is going on?” she mumbles sleepily, trying to push him away.

“I found a 24 hour car rental place, if we leave now we can still catch the sunrise.”

He’s already turned away to grab her jeans from yesterday off the floor and Skye’s eyes sting with the sudden threat of tears. Last night she had complained about how badly she had wanted to see the sunrise over the Grand Canyon, and apparently Ward had decided to make it happen for her. Blinking away the tears, Skye grins at him as he throws the jeans at her, her heart feeling full enough to burst.

They grab drive-through coffee after picking up the rental car, and then they’re on their way. There is a sense of exhilaration in the air as they drive through the darkness, holding hands over the console. Ward keeps his eyes on the road but every now and then he lifts their joined hands to his lips and kisses her fingertips. They spent so long last night talking about everything; what their lives have been the last five years, what they feel about what happened back then, all the things they never told each other about their childhoods. Somehow this morning drive is quieter, just the two of them basking in the freedom to intertwine their fingers. The simple joy they take from it.

The pre-dawn sky is just beginning to lighten when they arrive, a few other brave souls making their way from the parking lot to the rim to watch the sunrise.

Skye is shivering by the time the first glimmer of light appears on the horizon, and Ward pulls her into his arms so she is perched on his lap with his chin resting on her shoulder. He takes advantage of the position to press kisses against the soft skin of her throat. She’s noticed how he seems to have barely stopped touching her since they kissed on the highway. It’s never more than a few minutes without his hands or mouth on her in some way if he can help it. Since she’s pretty sure she’s just as guilty as him, constantly needing the assurance that this is real, her hands reaching for him constantly, she can’t complain at all. Not that she’d want to.

The sunrise is incredible. Awe inspiring even. The canyon slowly appears before their eyes as the light spreads and paints all the colors back into the world. Somehow though, Skye finds herself more distracted by Ward’s arms around her, turning away from the sight to nuzzle her nose against the hollow of his throat. This is one of those perfect moments, she thinks. One of those memories she wants to capture in her mind and store away to hold onto forever. A place she never wants to leave. At that thought though, the idea of reality trickles back in again.

In two days they will be back in LA, back with their friends again. As much as Skye has missed them, suddenly she wishes that they had more time with just the two of them. She loves her friends, but none of them are exactly huge on respecting normal social boundaries and she is already groaning at the thought of the grilling she and Ward will be subjected to.

“Jemma’s gonna be surprised,” she muses as she snuggles deeper into his arms, remembering how hard her friend had to convince her to even agree to be in a car with Ward.

Ward’s chest rumbles with laughter under her cheek. “Are you kidding me? This was entirely her plan. I think her exact words when she  _told me_  that I was going to be driving back with you were, ‘maybe you two will finally get your heads out of your arses and give me some godchildren.’”

Skye snorts a surprised burst of laughter, both at his absolutely terrible imitation of Jemma’s accent and the fact that she can easily imagine that this is exactly what her friend would have said. She is choosing to ignore the part about giving Jemma godchildren for the moment.

“Her version of you is much better than yours,” she informs him with a smirk, shrieking with laughter when he responds by tickling her ribs. She’s still encircled by his arms so she can’t escape, and she can feel his smile against the back of her neck as he leans down to kiss her.

Skye shivers as his stubble scratches over her skin and he wraps his arms around her tighter against the early morning chill. The sunlight is spreading now, almost reaching them where they huddle on the rim.

“So,” Ward says, looking out at the canyon as it continues to take shape in the lightening day. “Was it worth it?”

Skye isn’t looking at the view though, she’s staring straight at him when she answers.

“Absolutely.”


End file.
